Today Inside Climate News and Desmogblog published unsettling details on the oversized influence of the natural gas industry over EPA’s long awaited Study of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas and Its Potential Impact on Drinking Water Resources. Thousands of documents made possible by a Greenpeace Freedom of Information Act request detail just how lopsided the relationship was between companies, namely Chesapeake Energy and Range Resources and the EPA – specifically when trying to reach an agreement on potential prospective cases studies. The idea behind prospective case studies was for EPA to monitor the operations of a natural gas well from beginning to end, including baseline water quality samples before drilling began. This type of case study seems like a critical and non-controversial aspect of any study designed to identify potential impacts to drinking water from fracking operations. That was not that case. Read the rest of this entry »

Today we are thrilled to hear the President vetoed S.1, a bill which would approve the Keystone Pipeline and put millions at risk of groundwater contamination while significantly increasing carbon pollution from the dirtiest oil on the planet.

The risk of spills from the pipeline are put squarely on the backs of landowners, farmers and Native American communities in the pipelines path, while the benefits of the project are concentrated to a few in the fossil fuel industry. Clean Water Action applauds this great news and commends the prolonged grassroots movement that led the call to deny the pipeline and instead chart a course for a truly clean energy future.

By Will Fadely, Baltimore Program Organizer – Follow Will on Twitter (@TrillChillWill )

Since Energy Answer’s entrance into Baltimore in 2008, we have been organizing with numerous groups like Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), Sierra Club, Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR), Community Research, Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and others in order to fight the proposed Energy Answers Incinerator. Especially instrumental was Free Your Voice a group of local students assisted by United Workers.

The campaign has focused on encouraging groups contracted to receive energy from the monstrosity known as Energy Answers to divest from dirty Waste-To-Energy (WTE) that pollutes our communities and invest into truly green energy.

With a stroke of Friday the 13th luck, we had some success!

The Baltimore Regional Cooperative Purchasing Committee (BRCPC) and its members voted to terminate their contract to buy energy from the Energy Answers Incinerator proposed for Baltimore City.

This is a big step toward stopping the incinerator! Some members of BRCPC include Baltimore County Public Schools, MD Department of General Services, and the City of Annapolis, to name a few.

It shows that after five years those originally supporting the nation’s largest waste-to-energy incinerator being built within one mile of schools, playgrounds and communities recognize it is a poorly conceived and unjust project.

The time has come for our community to take a stand for what we want and deserve. We deserve clean air, we deserve a say in what happens in our community and this decision has given us a step towards that right.

“This community has been dumped on for years; it’s time for a positive change,” Meleny exclaimed, a Brooklyn Park resident.

Now that BRCPC has opted out of receiving dirty energy from Energy Answers, LLC, it opens the door for truly green alternatives, such as a Curtis Bay resident’s proposed plan for a solar farm, and other zero waste options.

These alternatives have shown to create more jobs, clean and fair development for Curtis Bay and Baltimore City.

This should urge the other contractees with Energy Answers to terminate their agreements, as well as elected officials to pull their support, and give city residents the opportunity to invest in zero waste alternatives, while preventing further environmental injustice.

Most of our home furniture is padded with foam to make it comfortable. In the past, high levels of flame retardant chemicals were added to the foam in furniture and baby products to meet the outdated furniture flammability standard known as Technical Bulletin 117 (TB117). These chemicals do not provide a significant fire safety benefit and they are associated with serious health issues, including cancer, hormone disruption, and learning disorders[1]. Babies and young children are most vulnerable to the toxic effects of these chemicals since their bodies and brains are still developing.

One of the main sources of flame retardants in your home is the couch. Flame retardants escape and end up in the dust and air, increasing as the foam gets older and starts to break down. Toddlers have the highest levels of exposure because of their hand-to-mouth behavior and proximity to the floor where dusts settles. Biomonitoring studies on children have shown extremely high levels of flame retardants in their blood[2]. The chemicals are washed into the water supply and cause damage to wildlife and water quality[3]. Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday, the US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a joint Congressional hearing on EPA’s proposal to close loopholes in Clean Water Act protections for small streams and wetlands. I was proud to hear Clear Creek County Commissioner Tim Mauck make a compelling case for this overdue proposal to protect clean water. Tim pushed back on many of the myths opponents of this common sense rule have trotted out since it was proposed in March 2014.

Commissioner Mauck, a second-term member of the Clear Creek County Commission in Colorado gave persuasive testimony about the importance of healthy streams and wetlands to Colorado, our businesses and our natural resources. Protecting these vital water bodies has been a priority for Clean Water Action for over decade. Thank you Tim for your powerful testimony!

The majority of Californians live in counties with unhealthy air. But nowhere is the air unhealthier than in the San Joaquin Valley.

The San Joaquin Valley has never met the federal health standards for smog. Never. In fact, Valley residents face some of the worst smog pollution in the country. If you live in Kern County, home of the largest oil fields in California, the air you breathe may put your health at risk. Residents face a host of pollutants and toxic chemicals from the oil & gas industry, smog-forming emissions from fuels, vehicles, machinery and engines.

The hearing on EPA’s rule to restore Clean Water Act protection to small streams is just the opening salvo in a renewed War on Water. Clean Water Action will be in the thick of the fight…and we’ll need your help to win!

I say ‘renewed War on Water’ because this isn’t the first time polluters have attacked the Clean Water Act. Way back in 1972 when the Act was first passed, they convinced President Nixon to veto the bill. Fortunately Congress overrode the veto. Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago today, a storm water pipe beneath a Duke Energy coal ash pond near Eden, NC broke and spewed an estimated 140,000 tons of toxic ash and contaminated waste water into the Dan River. 140,000 tons is certainly a lot of pollution, but what you might not know is that coal-burning power plants across the country discharge an estimated 15,000,000 pounds of toxic waste water in to our nation’s rivers, lakes and bays every day. That’s the equivalent of a Dan River-sized coal ash spill happening every 18.6 days or approximately 20 times a year.

In fact, no other industry comes even close to polluting our nation’s waters with this amount of toxic waste. Wastewater from coal plants contains a toxic brew of heavy metals, arsenic, nutrients and other nasty chemicals that are known to be harmful to humans and aquatic life. And the 15,000,000 pounds a day (or 5.5 billion pounds a year) is only a rough estimate of what we know based on permitted discharges. In reality, many of the ponds where plant wastewater is stored are unlined and unmonitored and, all too frequently, leak or fail. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday I testified at the EPA smog pollution hearing on what seemed like a no-brainer proposal. EPA plans to strengthen its smog standards to reflect the most recent science on the devastating impacts of air pollution. This is a good thing for everyone who breathes.

Tackling this crippling form of power plant pollution is incredibly important and should be supported by everyone. Clean Water Action strongly supports EPA’s pollution reduction plan and we urged the Agency to set the smog protections at 60 parts per billion to provide the greatest protections for public health possible under federal law. A few of the most blatant health impacts linked to smog include chronic asthma and other respiratory and lung diseases, reproductive and developmental harm, and even premature death. Read the rest of this entry »

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